DEAR MISS MANNERS: At social occasions, friends and family often ask about how my work is going, and then about the charity of which I am a trustee, and I understand that this is all to do with showing an interest in my well-being and my activities.
However, I struggle to get the balance right. If I go into the details, which tend to be technical, their eyes glaze over, and I have committed a faux pas; if I talk about my current emotional response (sometimes stressful and challenged), they start offering cliched solutions or opinions and MY eyes glaze over and I commit a faux pas. If I give a pat answer of “It’s all going well” or something, then I am doing them the disservice of dishonesty, and lose that sense of familiarity and openness that friends and family are for.
GENTLE READER: If you want to have conversations about your work, you need to provide some conversational material. “I’m stressed” or “It’s fine” do not qualify. What could you expect them to say in return?
Miss Manners suggests your responding to their questions with open-ended remarks -- describe a challenge at work, one that a layperson could understand and that you are trying to handle, an anecdote about someone your charity helps, or whatever might be of interest that does not violate work ethics or others’ privacy.
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)